THE USE OF BLOGS Running head : THE USE OF BLOGS

The use of blogs among ESL learners: Encourage students writing skill Fatin Inani bt Abdul Razak International Islamic University Malaysia

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Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of blogs in encouraging students writing skill. Specifically, this study examined the effectiveness of using blogs to increase students interest in writing, to improve students writing fluency as well as to build students self-confidence. This study employed a quantitative research methodology involving the use of questionnaires. The result shows that blog acts as a powerful tool in helping students to improve their writing skill. Blog contains various advanced features that are beneficial in developing students writing process. Through blogs also, students may build their selfconfidence in giving opinion in public.

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Table of Content Content Page

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 4 Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 5 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 7 Findings / Discussions ............................................................................................... 8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 17 References ................................................................................................................. 18 Appendices ................................................................................................................ 19

THE USE OF BLOGS

The use of blogs among ESL learners: Encourage students writing skill Learning English is a very challenging task for the second language learners. English language classroom has always been associated with translation of meaning and memorization of grammar rules. As a result, they would become less motivated to learn the language due to less interesting and interactive learning environment. Teachers need to keep pace with current trend in order to encourage students to acquire and improve their second language. Recently, many studies have been conducted regarding the integration of internet in the language classroom. The use of the internet in classroom has introduced a new way of collaborative communication among second language learners (Galien & Bowcher, 2010). The emergence of blogs offers a new dimension of teaching and learning language. According to Nadzrah & Kemboja (2009), Blogs or also known as weblogs, or online journal (personal journal) and recently as collaborative technology is a new approach for individuals to express and share their thoughts with the public (p.45). Therefore, the online writing gives the learners an authentic and enjoyable learning environment. However, second language students are having difficulties in writing in English language. They tend to write in short sentences and have problems in expressing their thoughts and opinions in their writing. Their failure to construct sentences decreases their enthusiasm and motivation to keep on trying. Thus, they become less interested in learning English language. Besides, lack of vocabularies and less proficiency in English also act as barriers for the students to write effectively. They have no difficulties in coming out with ideas in their mind, but when it comes to writing they fail to convey the ideas on papers. This is due to lack of exposure to English reading materials that make the students often have a hard time in writing their essays. This study aims to help the second language students to

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write constructively in English as well as to improve on their writing skill. Hence, it is believe that blog is a remedy to cater this problem. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using blog to encourage students interests in writing. It is to ensure that writing in blogs is a pleasant and amusing activity. Once they have found that writing is fun, sooner or later they will develop a sense of interest within themselves to write frequently. Besides, this study seeks to find out whether blogs are able to improve students writing fluency. This is because by using blog, students will have the tendency to pour their feelings, thoughts, as well as their ideas freely. Finally, the objective is to build up their confidence in expressing their feelings, thoughts and ideas through writing in blog. In relation to the use of blogs in ESL classroom, this paper tries to answer three main questions: 1. Does blogging increase the students interest in writing? 2. Does blogging improve the students writing fluency? 3. Does blogging improve students confidence in expressing their feeling/ thought/ ideas? By understanding the benefits of blogs writing in improving students writing skill, it hopes to provide a mean for teachers and students to overcome the problems in writing. In this digital era, the integration of technology in classroom has become a common phenomenon. Blogs have been used widely in classroom to promote writing activity among students. According to Nadzrah & Kemboja (2009), the use of blogs allows students to be creative in their writing. Blogs contain features that enable the learners to insert pictures, songs and video in their posts. This will encourage the students interest in writing.

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Through blog, the students are exposed to global audience beyond their friends and peers in school. Arslan & Sahin-Kizil (2010) and Galien & Bowcher (2010) point out that writing on blogs promotes reader awareness among the students. When they are aware of the boundless audience, students tend to check on their language grammar and content before posting their writing. This wider audience encourages students to generate a quality writing piece. As mentioned by Zhang (2009), Scholars who use blogs also say that because students know they are going to have an audience by publishing their writing on the Web, they often produce higher quality work than students who write only for the teacher of for the others in the class. (p.67)

Furthermore, it is true that blogs help to build self-confidence among learners. This self-confidence is obtained from the feedback and comments given by the audience. According to Zhang (2009), the feedback and comments from the audience serves as a guideline for the learners to improve their writing skills where they learn it from those who have more knowledge and experiences.

Finally, based on a study done by Chan & Yap (2010), it is true that blogs improves students ability to write in English. In the study, the practise of having online discussions and writing on current issues has promoted a better writing for the students. Frequent practise on writing allows students to exercise their writing skills and make full use of the English language environment. This is supported by a research held by Abdulaziz (2011) where writing skills and proficiency have shown improvement after using blogs. He stated that the

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success of the activity may be based on the fact that students have undergone more exposure to the language which has contributed to make them proficient (p. 38).

Methodology Introduction The main purpose of this study is to find out the ESL learners perceptions on blogs writing. A population from Institute of Education (INSTED), International Islamic University was chosen to assess whether blogs are able to encourage students writing skill. Data for this research were collected through a set of questionnaire.

Instruments This study employed the used of quantitative research methodology which is questionnaire. There are 10 questions in the survey which divided into three sections. Students have to answer all the questions. Section A consists of two multiplechoice items on the students interest in blog writing. Meanwhile, Section B consists of four Likert-type items on the students writing fluency in using blog. Lastly, Section C consists of four True and False items on the students confidence to express their ideas and thought in using blogs.

Participants The subjects of the study were students from Institute of Education (INSTED), International Islamic University. The number of the respondents was 30 students which come from various

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courses such as TEASL, TAASL, ISED and Guidance & Counselling. All of them have some basic knowledge of computer skills as they had taken a computer course at the university.

Procedures The questionnaires were distributed randomly to all INSTED students. It was held at various places in the faculty such as cafeteria, students foyer and classrooms. Every respondent was given about 5 minutes to complete the questionnaire.

Data Analysis For data analysis, the raw data was entered into computer by using spreadsheet software which is Microsoft Office Excel. The results were then transformed into charts like bar graph, pie chart and column graph. It is easier to analyse data in visual form as it is more readable.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS FINDINGS

Figure 1 shows the proportion of time spent for blogs writing in a week. It is obvious that majority of the students which is 70 percent, spent about less than 1 hour per week for blogging. Besides, percent respondents Figure 1: Weekly average27 hours spent of on the blogs writing are spending their time for blogs writing in 1 to 3 hours per week. Meanwhile, only 3 percent of the students spent more than 5 hours in a week to write blogs.

Figure 2 demonstrates the students interest in writing blogs. There is a marked difference between students who enjoys blogs writing and those who have no interest in blogging. It is about more than half of the respondent keen to write blogs.
Figure 2: Enjoying blogs writing

Figure 3 displays the students perception whether blogging makes them learn to write better. Up to more than half of the students agreed that they are able to write better when using blogs (80 percent). Only few students disagreed with the view that blogging helps them to write better (20 percent).
Figure 3: Write better when blogging

Figure 4 presents the students view on whether blogs writing encourage them to write longer. This result indicates majority of the respondent which is about 70 percent, felt that blogging can help them to write longer. Yet, only 30 percent of the participants felt that blogs writing does not encourage them to write longer.
Figure 4: Write longer when blogging

Figure 5 indicates the students awareness in checking their grammar before posting on blogs. There is only a slight difference between students who check grammar in their writing (53 percent) with students who ignore grammar correction (47 percent).

Figure 5: Check grammar carefully before posting on blogs

Figure 6 describes the students belief on whether blogs are able to improve their writing ability. It is significant that students who felt blogging can improve writing skill made up to 80 percent of the total respondent. However, 20 percent of the students indicate that their writing skill has not improved even after blogs writing.
Figure 6: Writing skill has improved after blogging

Figure 7 exhibits the percentage on whether blogging helps the students to express their ideas and thoughts clearly. 70 percent of the participants agreed that they are able to convey their opinions clearly by using blogs. On the other hand, there is also students who do not agree which made up to 30 percent.
Figure 7: Blogging helps to express ideas and thoughts clearly

Figure 8 gives the percentage of students who felt whether it is good to share feeling with others in cyberspace. Majority found that it is acceptable to share feeling with others in the internet (about 53 percent) while others thought that it is not a good idea (about 47 percent).

Figure 8: Sharing feelings with others in cyberspace is good

Figure 9 shows the students indication of their confident level when blogging. Sixty-seven percent of the students believe that they become more confident to give opinion in public. Yet, 33 percent of the students felt that their confidence level still remain the same even after writing on blogs.
Figure 9: More confident in giving opinion publicly

Figure 10 describes the students opinion on whether comments from friends and teachers are able to increase their self-confidence to blog more. There is a vast difference between students who agrees that comments gives motivation for them to write more (about 73 percent) and students who thought comments are
Figure 10: Comments from friends and teachers increase selfconfidence

not a source of motivation (about 27 percent) to be confident.

DISCUSSIONS

Figure 1: Enjoying blogs writing

A test was conducted to study whether blogs are able to increase students interest in writing. From Figure 1, it can be seen clearly that majority of the students enjoy blogs writing. This may be due to the features provided by blog that enable learners to insert pictures, songs and video in their posts. With these features in blog, it serves as a medium for students to pour their creativity in writing. This is supported by Nadzrah & Kemboja (2009), the use of blogs allow students to be creative in their writing. Hence, this may encourage the students interest in writing.

Figure 2: Write longer when blogging

The purpose of this section is to discuss on students writing fluency in using blogs as a medium for writing. According to the bar graph above, it is significant that students who felt blogging improved their writing skill made up to 70 percent of the total respondent. Their writing fluency increased in terms of their ability to write longer sentences and paragraphs. This was similar to the finding of another research conducted by Nadzrah & Kemboja (2009). According to previous finding, 68.6 percent students realised that they were able to write longer on blogs. This is due to the writing environment of blogging. In writing blogs, there was no pressure to complete the work as in the classrooms. Because of that, students have more time to generate and expand their ideas. However, there are about 7 percent of the students who are strongly disagree with the view that blogging helps them to write longer. This may happen because the students have lower proficiency of English language. Thus, they have limited vocabulary to express their ideas and thoughts. Because of that, they tend to write in short sentences and paragraph.

Figure 3: Writing skill has improved after blogging

Figure 4: Check grammar carefully before posting on blogs

A survey was carried out to discover the relationship between blogs writing and writing skill. Here, the focus is on whether blogs serve as a platform to encourage students writing ability. Figure 3 and Figure 4 presented the results. From the bar graph in Figure 3, there is a marked significance on students who agreed blogging has improved their writing skill (80 percent). It can be seen clearly that this students have gain positive improvement in their writing ability. This may be due to grammar awareness as grammar also plays an important role in writing. According to the bar graph in Figure 4, more than half of the respondents (about 54 percent) tend to check their grammar before posting it on blogs. This realisation occurs because of the audience awareness among the students. The audience is not only limited to their peers and the surrounding community but it also expand to all internet user in this world wide. When they are conscious of this audience, the student tend to establish a quality piece of writing and thus may increase their writing skill.

Figure 5: Comments from friends and teachers increase self-confidence

Figure 6: More confident in giving opinion publicly

This part will present on the students perception of blogging as a tool to build selfconfidence. Both Figure 5 and Figure 6 display the outcome. What is interesting in this finding from Figure 5 is that the students believe comments from peers and teachers increase their self-confidence in writing blogs. This is align with the result in Figure 6 where more than half of the student (67 percent) agreed that they become more confident in expressing their opinion after blogging practise. As mentioned by Zhang (2009), the feedback and comments from the audience serves as a guideline for the learners to improve their writing skills where they learn it from those who have more knowledge and experiences. With those guidelines, the students are more aware on their writing thus lead them to become more confidence in expressing their ideas and thoughts.

CONCLUSION It is undeniable true that blog acts as a powerful tool for teaching and learning writing skills among ESL learners. Blog contains advanced features that are beneficial in developing writing process. These features provide learners an environment that allows them to be creative in their writing. Besides, blogging also improve students writing fluency as students have more freedom to express their ideas with no time limit and thus encourage them to write longer. Likewise, through blogs, students may build their self-confidence in giving opinion in public because comments given by peers and teachers serve as a guideline for them to enhance their way of writing. To sum up, this research is much related to my future career as an English teacher. This is because this study gives me an insight on the new approach of teaching English by using the integration of technology in classroom. Besides, this research is very useful in helping students to improve their writing skill because writing is a very important component in English Language as it is a mean of communication. As a result, this will lead to build a knowledgeable person who may contribute to the ummah and society through writing.

RECOMMENDATION Lastly, it is recommended that further studies should be carried out to explore more features of blog that might help students in writing classroom. Furthermore, this research also can be expand to a wide population of students from other faculty to see whether there any similarities or differences in the results. However, it is also recommend to do a study on the limitation of using blogs in classroom.

References

Abdulaziz, I. F. (2011) EFL learners use of blogging for developing writing skills and enhancing attitudes towards English learning : an exploratory study. Journal of Language and Literature 2(1), 31- 48.

Arslan, R. S. & Sahin-Kizil, A. (2010) How can the use of blog software facilitate the writing process of English language learners? Journal of Computer Assisted Language Learning 23(3), 183 197.

Chan, M. Y. & Yap, N. T. (2010) Encouraging participantion in public discourse through online writing in ESL instruction. 3L The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies 16(2), 115 138

Galien, P. & Bowcher, W. L. (2010) Using blogs in ESL/EFL teaching and teacher-training. Asian EFL Journal 42, 4 21.

Nadzrah Abu Bakar & Kemboja Ismail (2009) Using blogs to encourage ESL students to write constructively in English. AJLTHE: Asean Journal of Teaching and Learning in

Higher Education 1(1), 45 57.

Zhang, D. (2009) The application of blog in English writing. Journal of Cambridge Studies 4(1) 64 71.

Appendices SURVEY Section A : Please answer all the questions 1. How much time do you spend in a week for blog writing? Less than 1 hour 1 to 3 hours More than 5 hours

2. Do you enjoy writing a blog? No Average Yes

Section B : Please indicate your opinion concerning the blog 4 Strongly agree 3 agree 2 disagree

1 Strongly disagree ITEMS I learn to write better when writing blog I feel that I can write longer when writing on blog I check my grammar carefully before posting it. I feel that my writing has improved after writing on my blogs 1 2 3 4

1. 2. 3. 4.

Section C : Please choose whether it is true of false ITEMS 1. Do you feel blogging helps you to express your ideas and thoughts clearly? 2. Do you find it is good to share your feelings with others in cyberspace? 3. Do you become more confident in giving your opinion in public? 4. Do comments from your friends and teachers make you become more confident? Yes No